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This is a feel good flick and no hard edges. No saddness. No suffering.

The story surrounds 2 musicians moved to NYC with the guy (Levine) getting a major record deal and started to chase the fame and left the girlfriend behind (Knightley.) At the same time, a scruffy label exec who found the label but had not been finding another good singer for a few years. 1 heartbroken, 1 somewhat can imagine and then find a jewel when drunk, met.

They had decided to make a record. And chemistry flew between them. Did that chemistry work? Only somewhat. Knightly looking all cute with her signature smile in closeup in every single scene that eventually got a bit tiring. Ruffalo was okay but could use a bit better lines / scripts. Adam Levine’s role was odd and almost off the norm even in real life. It was unnecessary to make him such a bad guy to contrast Knightley’s angelic image.

The friendship between Knightley and Corden was much more genuine and gentle.

Ce Lo Green also has a small role that was a bit funny.

No after the credits.

Keywords: romance, music, drama, moviereview

— Spoiler Ahead —

The movie reminded of Inside Llewyn Davis. Starving musicians trying to get a break, except for this movie, everyone did! The songs were folksy and acoustic guitar based for Knightly. Levine grew an odd beard like Rasputin, a full-on thick black beard. His bizarre role of changing the songs from folksy to strange seemed a bit too much to make him the bad guy with bad taste. Obviously at the end it showed how he tried to redeem himself from trying to get back (somehow) to Knightley. And he got rid of the beard. Possibly he never really wanted to be labeled as a bad guy even in a movie. After all, he is the only real musician in the movie.

The ending was a bit surprising that was fairly good as how Ruffalo felt the friendship for Knightley and a hint of romance, yet realized how much more he truly loved his estranged wife. And ultimately Knightley’s role was to feel liberated and be single as she rode the bicycle away.

The style how they decided to make the record by singing each song at different places in NYC was excellent, especially adding the kids to help singing along, making the theme much more unique.

Songs by Knightley were really just mediocre.

Some scenes repeated and replayed a few times in the beginning was a terrible to try to do an explanation of how things really happened. It only needed to add a few seconds to stitch the stories together, and no need to replay the whole segment, like Knightley’s whole debut of the song. That made the movie quite tiring.

The rest of the plot was a bit slow if not for the way the record was made and the side story between Ruffalo and his daughter.

The friendship between Knightley and Corden was filled with more laughter and closeness and one could almost wish there was more than just friendship between them.